Digital Commons Network^™

Medical Malpractice: The Italian Experience, Claudia Dimarzo

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Beginning with an investigation into the problematic nature of medical liability, the Article overviews the most significant approaches taken by courts and scholars in order to establish whether the physician's position before the patient is comparable with that of either a tortfeasor or a contractor.

Having explained that the most recent approaches in this regard tend toward the recognition of the contractual nature of medical liability, the Author discusses the implications of such a solution, making specific reference to the following issues: 1) the assignment of the burden of proof (along with the distinction between obligations of means and obligations …

The Law Of Medical Misadventure In Japan, Robert B. Leflar

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This paper offers a comprehensive overview of Japanese law and practice relating to iatrogenic (medically-caused) injury, with comparisons to other nations' medical law systems. The paper addresses criminal sanctions for Japanese physicians' negligent and illegal acts; civil law principles of substantive law and related issues of procedure, practice, and liability insurance; and administrative measures including health ministry programs aimed at expanding and improving the quality of peer review within Japanese medicine, and a recently implemented no-fault compensation system for birth-related injuries.

Among the paper's findings are these. Criminal and civil actions increased rapidly after highly publicized medical error events at …

Defined (Yet Uncertain) Benefit Pension Plans In America, Travis Bayer

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Despite playing a central role in many public and private employees' retirements, defined benefit pension plans are woefully underfunded. Moreover, the combination of a Baby Boomer retirement bulge and a struggling economy are putting even more pressure on defined benefit plans. This Note examines relevant background information regarding defined benefit pension plans and demographic data of the Baby Boomer generation. This Note then explores how and to what extent states and private employers have created contractual obligations through defined benefit plans and addresses what happens when those contractual obligations are breached. Finally, this Note suggests that litigation cannot provide a …

Public Corruption Concerns And Counter-Majoritarian Democracy Definition In Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission, Daaron Kimmel

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In determining the shape of the free speech rights and anti-corruption concerns that courts must balance in campaign finance cases, judges are influenced by their own underlying understandings of what an ideal democracy should look like. For judges to decide whether the government is appropriately regulating the political process, the rules that allow all citizens to interact with and shape their democracy, judges must first decide what that democracy ought to look like. This affords judges a great deal of discretion in campaign finance cases. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a particularly bold judicial attempt to reshape the …

A Comparison Of Presettlement And Modern Forest Composition Along An Elevation Gradient In Central New Hampshire, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur, Steven P. Hamburg, Charles V. Cogbill, Wendy Y. Sugimura

All Materials

Tree species composition is influenced not only by edaphic and climatic factors but also by natural and human-caused disturbances. To understand interactions among these influences, we compared forest species composition data from the time of European settlement with modern data. We derived elevation data for 2529 trees mapped by early land surveys (1770–1850) across a 1000 m elevation gradient in central New Hampshire and compared these with modern data (2004–2009) from the Forest Inventory and Analysis program (123 plots containing 2126 trees) and from permanent plots representing case studies of different land-use histories. Spruce and beech are much less abundant …

Heat Shock Protein, Hsp90 Plays A Role In Mt1-Mmp's Ability To Activate Substrate Proteins, Theresa Buck

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Membrane type 1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP) plays a major role in cancer invasion and metastasis. The mechanism by which MT1-MMP is trafficked to the plasma membrane where it functions to proteolytically activate its substrate proteins is not fully understood. The gene of heat shock protein (Hsp90alpha) was identified as being upregulated in HT1080 cells treated with concanavalin A (conA), a lectin that promotes proMMP-2 activation and cell migration in HT1080 cells compared to untreated HT1080 cells. To determine the mechanism underlying MT1-MMP substrate degradation and cell migration, biological and biochemical approaches were carried out. Zymography was preformed to examine the …

Janus Kinase (Jak) 2 Regulation And The Novel Activating Mutation, Jak2r546q, Lana Marie Corbo

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Janus kinase (JAK) 2 is a critical secondary signaling protein and is ubiquitously expressed in hematopoietic cells. One of the major roles of JAK2 is to trigger signal transduction following binding of the hematopoietic growth factor thrombopoietin (TPO), to its receptor c-Mpl, which initiates megakaryopoiesis. Previous findings focused on other hematopoietic growth factor receptors suggest that JAK2 is critical for translocation of the receptor to the membrane. Using hematopoietic cell lines, in which we transiently overexpressed human JAK2, we found that increased JAK2 expression had no effect on cell surface membrane localization. We also studied the effects of c-Mpl cell …

Collimator Optimization For Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography Using Detection And Localization Tasks, Yihuan Lu

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

We use signal detection and estimation and simulation methods to optimize the collimator in SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) medical imaging systems. A SPECT system images a radiopharmaceutical in the body to produce raw data called the sinogram that is then reconstructed to form a viewable image. The important imaging component is the collimator which controls a noise/resolution tradeoff in the sinogram. A signal like a tumor can be lost in the blur and noise of the sinogram. We apply an ideal observer to the sinogram to find the best collimator. We address two tasks (1) detect and localize …

Provenance And Weathering Of Holocene Ganges-Brahmaputra Sediments: Applications Of Sr Geochemistry To Late Quaternary Delta Evolution, Penny M. Paolo

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The Ganges and Brahmaputra drainage systems make up one of the largest source-to-sink systems in the world. Together, the rivers carry >1Gt of sediment annually from the Himalayas to the continental margin where approximately two-thirds of this enormous load is presently sequestered to the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta (GBD), with the remaining third deposited on the Bengal Fan via the Swatch of No Ground canyon. There has been extensive work to characterize Himalayan lithologies and the sediments of the Bengal Fan, but surprisingly little focus on the geochemistry of deltaic deposits where the majority of sediments have been deposited in the Holocene. …

Disorders Of Schizophrenic Embodiment: A Phenomenological Investigation, Krisztina Sajber

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The bodily manifestations of schizophrenia are not commonly in the forefront of scientific research. An investigation of the disorders of schizophrenic embodiment is nevertheless instructive not only for psychotherapeutic advances in the treatment of the schizophrenic condition, but because it offers unusual access to the pre-reflective experience of the body, a topic of great significance in contemporary phenomenology. This dissertation proposes a methodological framework for the systematic analysis of the various disorders of embodiment in schizophrenia, such as the schizophrenic modality of bodily self-alienation, the distortions of the body image experienced by schizophrenics, the processes that drive the conceptualization of …

Live Cultures: Illness, Mortality, And Masculinity In Contemporary Spanish Film, Bobby D Allbritton

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Live Cultures" explores the ways that democratic Spain has been understood, written, and filmed as an ill kingdom, and how illness as bodily effect is an ontology that affects our understanding of our discrete selves. To consider illness a dark geography, as Sontag wrote in Illness as Metaphor, begs a continual re-interpretation of the relation of self, body and nation, an understanding of healthy or ill citizenship as it is inscribe into the body. This politicized inscription does not function alone but in tandem with gender, considering the ways that illness in its most base function operates some effect on …

Clustering And Network Analysis With Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (Snp), Hongyan Chen

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The goal of the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) is to investigate the relationships between disease phenotypes and genotypes, which are usually determined by a large number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Currently GWAS are often underpowered to identify SNPs with small to moderate effect sizes. In order to overcome this difficulty, two major approaches, (1) meta-analysis by increasing sample size and (2) SNP pre-selection by dimension reduction, are often adopted. Dimension reduction for SNP data has been arduous due to the categorical nature of SNP that renders most association measures such as the Pearson correlation or the Euclidean distance inappropriate. …

Integrated Biobehavioral Analysis Of Sex Differences In A Rat Model Of Schizophrenia, Igor Feinstein

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Schizophrenia is a mental illness affecting roughly 1% of the population that is characterized by both positive/affective and negative/cognitive symptoms and is associated with abnormalities in multiple neurotransmitter systems and brain areas. Recently, reduced function of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) has emerged as an etiologic hypothesis with explanatory power for this spectrum of disturbances. However, it is unknown how NMDAR hypofunction relates to the striking sex differences that are also seen in the incidence and severity of schizophrenia's positive (female > male) vs. negative (male > female) signs, in its associated neurochemical imbalances and in the efficacies of drugs commonly used to …

Verification Of Security Policy Administration And Enforcement In Enterprise Systems, Puneet Gupta

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The scale and complexity of security policies in enterprise systems makes it difficult to ensure that they achieve higher-level security goals. This dissertation explores two important ways in which policy analysis can help: reachability analysis for administrative policies, and analysis of policy enforcement in enterprise systems. An administrative policy specifies how each user in an enterprise may change the policy. Fully understanding the consequences of an administrative policy can be difficult, because sequences of changes by different users may interact in unexpected ways. Administrative policy analysis helps by answering questions such as user-permission reachability, which asks whether specified users can …

Chastising Female Chastity: Social Criticisms Of Female Virtue In Cyril Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy, Thomas Middleton's The Second Maiden's Tragedy, And Francis Beaumont And John Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy, Samantha Karasik

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The objective of this analysis is to chronicle the idealization and subsequent deprecation of the chaste Renaissance woman in three seventeenth century revenge tragedies. This paper first explores Renaissance society's expectations for female chastity and examines how these rigidly defined rules for maidens and wives were once strictly enforced by men. Cyril Tourneur's "&Idquo The Revenger's Tragedy &rdquo" illustrates this obsession with protecting female virtue in a world where women were beginning to break free from the constraints of strict gender and sexual codes of behavior. Next, this paper segues into a discussion of how societal corruption threatens the existence …

Wordsworth's Philosophy Of Wonder: Epistemology, Psychoanalysis, Phenomenology, Matthew Robert Lorenz

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Though scholars in the field of British Romanticism have made much of the opposition between the Enlightenment system genre and the Romantic fragment genre, they have granted comparatively little attention to the epistemological counterpoint to system: the detotalizing attitude of a philosophical wonder. By highlighting the integral yet much neglected role that wonder has played in Romantic epistemology and in Wordsworth's prose and Prelude in particular, this study rectifies the misguided assumptions that have informed modern accounts of Wordsworth's epic aspirations and philosophical practices. While Arnold famously alleged that the British Romantics "did not know enough, this dissertation demonstrates that …

The Uncertainty Of Certainty: Exploring A Dialectic, Leon Becker Marcelo

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The fostering of a dialectic between Certainty and Uncertainty and the perspectives of reality and "truth" that each engenders is necessary for writing and the teaching of writing. This necessity arises from the fact that a privileging of either extreme, at the expense of the other, is antithetical to work for the progress of not simply the teaching of writing but of the greater society and culture to which it would serve. Whether the pursuit of Certainty that culminated in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America in the birth of "Current-Traditional Rhetoric" or, conversely, the pursuit of Uncertainty that spread throughout academia …

The Upper Pennsylvanian Hushpuckney Core Black Shale Member From The Swope Formation In Kansas: Rhenium - Osmium Isotope Systematics, And The Highly Siderophile Elements., Lynnette La'mar Pitcher

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This thesis presents Rhenium - Osmium (Re-Os) systematics and Highly Siderophile Element (HSE) data from the (otherwise) geochemically and stratigraphically well studied Hushpuckney black shale from the Swope Formation in Kansas. Rhenium concentrations and the Re/Os ratios have a large spread that surpasses all published work on Re-Os. While the Re-Os data show significant scatter, the slope gives the expected age of 306 Ma. I use HSE's and Mo to consider geological processes that might have influenced the Re-Os systematics. The chondrite normalized HSE patterns are remarkably similar to that of seawater and supports the interpretation that the Midcontinent Seaway …

Theoretical Characterization Of Water-Surfaces Interactions, Adrien Poissier

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Much effort is being devoted to the understanding of water-substrate interactions at metallic or semiconducting surfaces with catalytic properties. Confined water represents a great interest for physicists and chemists interested in state-of-the-art technologies such as, fuel cells where the rates of proton have to be controlled, nano-sensors, heterogeneous catalysis, or nano-fluids. Creation of hydrogen gas from water dissociation, also remains an important challenge in order to complete the cycle of CO2 free green energies production. Photocatalytic processes, with semiconducting substrates such as GaN 1010 seem to represent strong candidates towards this achievement. This work focuses on the investigation of water-substrate …

Contact Lens-Related Visual Loss: A Case Series From Karachi, Tanveer Anjum Chaudhry, Sarah Sarfraz, Qazi Assad Khan, Khabir Ahmad

Section of Ophthalmology

All cases of corneal ulcers, presenting at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi between January 2006 and December 2010 were reviewed. Information was obtained regarding socio-demography, the cause of ulcer, prior treatment and visual acuity. Afterwards, contact-lens specific information such as the type of lens and purpose and duration of lens usage was obtained from the participants by phone interviews.
There were 59 persons with unilateral ulcers and 4 had bilateral presentation. The mean age of the study participants was 27.79 +/- 14.51 years while the median age as 24 years. Of these, 87 %had a visual acuity less than …

Medical Malpractice And Compensation In The Uk, Richard Goldberg

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In the first part of this paper, Dr. Goldberg examines the context in which medical malpractice liability is operating in the UK. The fact that the state-run National Health Service (NHS) is the major healthcare provider in the UK has several implications, since funding for medical malpractice compensation in the NHS comes from the taxpayer. The most recent empirical evidence on the incidence and funding of claims in England and Scotland is assessed, to show a trend of expenditure on clinical negligence increasing, particularly in England. This is followed by an examination of the statutory framework for the empowerment of …

Worthy Of Their Name? Addressing Aquatic Nuisance Species With Common Law Public Nuisance Claims, Christopher Grubb

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Aquatic invasive species like the Asian carp and zebra mussel have caused grave ecological and economic harm across the United States, and frequently harm rights common to the public such as boating, fishing, and bathing. Yet, Congress' efforts to address the problem through legislation have been piecemeal and unsuccessful. Historically, the common law of public nuisance served as an important tool to remedy transboundary pollution. More recently, courts have established that such public nuisance claims will be displaced where Congress has comprehensively regulated in a field. This Note explores whether public nuisance claims involving aquatic invasive species should be displaced …

The Impact Of Mandatory Supervised Release (Msr) And Time Served On Idoc's Population, David E. Olson, Donald Stemen

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications & Other Works

This presentation provided an overview of the impact that violators of Mandatory Supervised Release (MSR or "parole") had on Illinois' prison admissions and prison population as well as an overview of changes in sentences and time served by those admitted to prison in Illinois.

Accelerated Fatigue Crack Growth Simulation In A Bimaterial Interface, R. Moslemian, Anette M. Karlsson, C. Berggreen

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

A method for accelerated simulation of fatigue crack growth in a bimaterial interface (e.g. in a face/core sandwich interface) is proposed. To simulate fatigue crack growth, a routine is incorporated in the commercial finite element program ANSYS and a method to accelerate the simulation is implemented. The proposed method (the cycle jump technique) is based on conducting finite element analysis for a set of cycles to establish a trend line, extrapolating the trend line spanning many cycles, and use the extrapolated state as initial state for additional finite element simulations. A control criterion is utilized to ensure the accuracy of …

Prism Vol. 3, No. 1, Center For Complex Operations

PRISM (Full PDF Issues)

This issue of PRISM critically examines the evolving landscape of counterinsurgency, stabilization, and security cooperation in the wake of the Afghanistan conflict. The Features section explores the crisis facing counterinsurgency doctrine, the challenges of negotiating a settlement in Afghanistan, and the limitations of U.S. stabilization and reconstruction efforts. Articles on indirect military approaches, nation-building, and the absence of a "Marshall Plan" for the Middle East offer perspectives on state resilience and post-conflict recovery.

Further analysis delves into the role of military engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa and enduring military-to-military partnerships during the Arab Spring. From the Field provides a case study …

Algebra Knowledge In Early Elementary School Supporting Later Mathematics Ability., Scott A. Strother 1979-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study explored the impact that algebra knowledge in 1st and 2nd grade can have in growth and achievement in mathematics through 5th grade. Previous studies have shown the positive impact of teaching algebra in middle school (e.g. Smith, 1996). Other studies have shown that students can learn and apply fundamental algebra concepts even earlier, including early elementary grades (e.g. Schifter et al., 2008; Brizuela and Earnest, 2008). The current study aimed to expand upon this research by showing students' knowledge of early algebra concepts can predict positive longitudinal outcomes. This would support cognitive and education theories that students …

Determining The Most Effective Way In Which To Manage Congestive Heart Failure Patients., Beatrice Ugiliweneza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: CHF is a chronic disease that affects nearly five million people each year; in which at least 500,000 are newly diagnosed cases. Patients diagnosed with this disease will be under a physician's care for the remainder of their life. It is of great importance that the strategy, used to manage these patients, maximizes their health outcomes in a cost effective manner. Objective: The objective of the current analysis is to compare the health outcomes with the available CHF management methods: the 'Case Management' (CM), the 'Self Management' (SM) and the current 'Standard of Care' (SC). Also, this study aims …

Gold Catalysis And Its Applications In Synthesis Of Fluorinated Organic Compounds., Weibo Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Our research activities are based on the catalytic systems that provide resource-saving synthetic methodologies through gold-catalyzed reactions of alkynes and alkenes. We have worked on three applications: i) an effective and straightforward hydration of 3-alkynoates catalyzed by gold (III); this mild and atom-economical method can be used effectively with a wide range of substrates with high regioselectivity; ii) an efficient monofluorination of allyl silanes using Selectfluor has been achieved without gold catalysts; iii) a fluorine-enabled cationic metal species, generated by fluorination of a low valence gold(l) complex, catalyzed the hydration of alkynes to give a-substituted-a-fluoroketones in one pot under mild …

Incidence Of Soft Tissue Calcifications Of The Head And Neck Region On Maxillofacial Cone Beam Computed Tomography., Adam B. Wells 1977-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim of the study was to determine the incidence and imaging characteristics of soft tissue calcifications on cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). 556 CBCT image datasets were reviewed and 308 included. The following conditions were recorded: 1) Carotid artery calcifications (CAC), 2) Triticeous cartilage (TC), 3) Superior cornu of the thyroid cartilage (SCT), 4) Tonsilloliths (T) and, 5) Other including lymph nodes (0). The age and sex of patients who were excluded served as controls. 107 (34.75%) demonstrated at least one calcification. Those with calcifications were approximately 12 years older than controls (t value = 6.32, p < 0.001). The incidence of calcifications in decreasing order are TC (11.4%), CAC (10.4%), T (10.4%) and, SCT (5.2%). Differential location and appearance of calcifications were described. Soft tissue calcifications were a common finding with TC, CAC and T presenting in almost equal frequency. Calcifications exhibit unique characteristics on CBCT images.

Thermolysis Stability, Solution Reactivity And Structural Studies Of A Thioperoxide-Bridged Dimolybdenum(V) Dimer., Ackim Maduvu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Molybdenum-sulfur complexes have developed a lot of interest in the chemistry of metal-coordinated sulfur due to their importance in biological systems and in industrial processes like catalysis. For example, in biological processes molybdenum has been recognized as a very important metal in enzymes used for nitrogen fixation for over 60 years. In this dissertation, the system of the imidodithiophosphate /l-carboxylatomolybdenum(V) dimer was studied for crystal thermolytic stability and solution reactivity. Mo2(NTo)2(S2P(OEt)2)2(µ-O2CR)(µ-SBn)(µ-SO) will be abbreviated as BnS{Mo2}SO, where R is CH3, CH2CH2CH3, C(CH3)3 or CH(OCH3)C6H5. In the crystal phase, the packing of BnS{Mo2}SO acetate allows the molecule to pair off on …